Nautilus Support Build & Guide — Patch 16.12

Overview

Nautilus is a tank engage support whose entire game revolves around a single ability: Dredge Line (Q). Land it on an enemy and you stun them, pull them into your team, and trigger your Staggering Blow (P) root for a half-second more lockdown. Miss it and you have a 14-second cooldown of nothing — no ranged poke, no waveclear that matters, and a melee tank standing where the enemy support wants you to be. That binary nature makes him brutal against people who walk in straight lines and embarrassing against people with spell-shields or fast dashes.

His game plan is to find a hook, spend his Depth Charge (R) on the priority target in a teamfight (it chases a single enemy and knocks up anyone in its path), then peel the carry behind him with Riptide (E) slows. Titan's Wrath (W) gives a temporary shield and AOE magic damage on his auto-attacks for 6 seconds — that's the trade window where Nautilus actually deals damage. Outside of W, he's essentially a CC chassis: every choice you make is "where do I want my next stun to land".

Recommended Build

Starting items: World Atlas (the support starter that auto-evolves through the support quest) + Stealth Ward trinket.

Core items (in order):

1. World Atlas — the support starter. It generates the gold that fuels your lane and auto-upgrades twice (Runesteel-style intermediate, then Bloodsong when the quest finishes).
2. Mercury's Treads — boots with magic resist and tenacity (reduces the duration of stuns and roots applied to you). The default in most matchups because enemy supports and mid laners are usually magic damage with CC.
3. Locket of the Iron Solari — first full item. Active shield for your whole team during a teamfight engage; it pairs perfectly with your R flash-engage timing.
4. Knight's Vow — second full item. Bond with your strongest carry: you redirect a slice of damage they take onto yourself, and you gain movement speed when running toward them. Pure peel tool.
5. Bloodsong — endgame upgrade of the support starter (you don't buy it directly, your World Atlas evolves into it once the quest is complete). Carries a Spellblade-style passive: after a cast, your next basic attack deals bonus damage and amps the target.
6. Zeke's Convergence — third full item. After you ult, it links you to your bonded ally and adds a slow plus bonus damage on their attacks. Designed for engage tanks paired with a damage carry.

Situational items:

• Plated Steelcaps — swap from Mercury's vs auto-attack heavy lanes (Caitlyn, Draven, Master Yi). Flat reduction on every basic attack you take.
• Abyssal Mask — vs AP-heavy comps that group up. Aura makes nearby enemies take more magic damage; great if your team has a mid mage.
• Kaenic Rookern — vs burst mages (Veigar, Syndra, Annie). Large magic shield that regenerates out of combat — soaks the first ability rotation thrown at you in a fight.
• Thornmail — vs healing-stacking comps (Soraka, Vladimir, Aatrox). Applies Grievous Wounds (cuts enemy healing in half) when you take a basic attack.
• Warmog's Armor — vs poke comps (Xerath, Varus, Jayce). Out-of-combat HP regen lets you tank chip damage between waves and stay on the map.
• Randuin's Omen — vs crit-stacking ADCs (Caitlyn, Yasuo, Tryndamere). Reduces damage from critical strikes by 25% and slows all enemies around you with the active when you engage.

Boots: Mercury's Treads is the default — most enemy supports and mid laners deal magic damage and apply CC. Switch to Plated Steelcaps only when 3 of the enemy 5 deal physical damage.

Skill order: Q at level 1 (you need the engage online), E at 2 for pre-6 trade pressure (it slows for chases), W at 3 for the shield. Then max E first (lower cooldown means more wave poke and slow uptime), Q second (shorter cooldown on your engage), W last. Take R at 6, 11, 16.

Runes: Primary Resolve with Aftershock, Font of Life, Bone Plating, Unflinching. Secondary Inspiration with Magical Footwear and Cosmic Insight, or Sorcery with Manaflow Band and Nimbus Cloak vs heavy poke lanes.

Key matchups

• Soraka: Easy lane. She has no CC to interrupt your Q and her trade pattern is silence + auto-attack — your Q stuns her before she can cast it. Hook level 2 for first blood.
• Morgana: Hard counter. Her Black Shield blocks your Q completely. Bait the shield by walking forward as if to engage, wait for her to cast it (12s cooldown early), then hook in the window after it expires. If she always shields herself, hook the ADC instead.
• Caitlyn: Lane bully. She out-ranges your Q (Q range is 1150, her auto-attack is 650 but her traps and headshots zone you). Hide behind your wave and look for a flank hook from the side bush.
• Leona: Mirror engage. Whoever lands their CC first wins the trade. Her E dash is on a 10s cooldown — bait it out, then hook her in the recovery window. Ward the lane bushes, because she only engages from melee range.
• Lulu: Even-to-favored matchup. She has no spell shield; her W can polymorph you to cancel an in-progress engage, but it can't block a Q already in flight. Lead with Q before she pre-casts W.

Power spikes & win conditions

• Level 2 (with Q + E): Your first kill window. If you're allowed to push the wave 1, you hit level 2 first. Hook the enemy ADC, follow with E for the slow, your AD finishes them.
• Level 6: Depth Charge (R) unlocks. Now your engage is two-stage: hook in with Q, then chain R if they Flash. Look for a roam to mid lane after a successful all-in — your R is one of the strongest pickoff ults in the game.
• Locket of the Iron Solari completion (~ minute 14-16): Your engage is paired with a team-wide active shield. Force a Drake or grub fight here — your team is significantly tankier than the enemy's during the 3-second shield window.
• Knight's Vow + Bloodsong spike (~ minute 22-26): With Knight's Vow bonded to your carry and the support quest finished into Bloodsong, you can tank a full enemy combo and hand a win condition to your bonded ally. Force Baron and Drake fights in this window before the enemy ADC out-scales you.

Common mistakes

• Throwing Q into a minion wave. The hook stops on the first enemy hit, so a caster minion eats it instead of the enemy ADC. Walk to the side of the wave or use a brush to clear your line of sight before hooking.
• R-engaging a tank instead of the priority. Depth Charge chases its target — if you ult the enemy Sion, your R does almost nothing because Sion has 4000 HP and a passive that revives him. Always ult the highest-damage low-HP target (the ADC or mid mage), even if they're across the map.
• Saving W for the kill instead of using it for waveclear. Your shield is on a 12s cooldown — the longest window in your kit between uses. If you don't use it pre-trade, you don't get the 6 seconds of AOE auto-damage. Use W at the start of every engage, not at the end.
• Q-pulling onto the enemy team. Hooking terrain pulls you to it (a Flash-like reposition) — but hooking an enemy pulls you to them. If you Q an enemy in their backline, you arrive in their team alone and die in 1 second. Hook only when you have follow-up.
• Walking out of vision after losing Q. Without Q, you have no escape. After a missed hook, retreat to your wave or to a warded area for the 14 seconds it takes Q to come back; do not stand in fog of war hoping for a re-engage.

Advanced tip

Master the Q-flash combo for surprise engages. Cast Q in a direction, and during the brief animation cast Flash — the hook continues from your new position, dramatically extending its effective range and bypassing minion blocks. Practice in the Practice Tool until the timing is muscle memory: it lets you engage from outside the enemy's vision range and is the single mechanic that separates a "good" Nautilus from a smurf-tier one.